[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 13, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4547-S4549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Climate Change
Mr. KING. Mr. President, this is going to be an unusual set of
comments for me because I am going to start out with some personal
history, which I hope will make sense in terms of what I want to
address.
I started working in the alternative energy industry in 1983. When I
say industry, it was, actually, a very small company developing small
hydro projects in Maine and New England. We then worked on the
development of biomass projects. We, later on, worked on wind power and
then also on the development of large-scale conservation. So my
professional life has largely been occupied with energy and
particularly with renewable energy.
At the same time, I had a deep history in Maine in environmental
matters. I represented the environmental community in Maine before the
Maine Legislature, in the seventies, if you can believe that anybody
around here was still doing things in the seventies. I also, as
Governor, was very active in conservation matters and am proud to say
that, during my 8 years as the Governor of Maine, we put aside and set
into conservation and protection status more land than in the prior
175-year history of Maine combined. This has been a passion of mine,
the protection of the environment, for my entire life--so the history
of renewable energy development and also environmental advocacy.
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I learned some lessons when I was working in the field of developing
alternative or renewable energy. The most important lesson is that
there is no free lunch when it comes to energy. There are always costs
and benefits. There are always impacts that some people think are
terrific and that other people think are not so good. There are always
trade-offs.
In fact, I will never forget my going to hearings on hydro projects
and having people come and object and saying: We like hydro but not on
our river, not on this site, and, by the way, we don't really think you
should be ruining the rivers. Why don't you go and do wind power?
Lo and behold, 20 years later, I worked in the area of wind
development, of wind power, and people came to our hearings and said:
We don't really need to spoil the view in our mountains. Do more hydro.
I am not making that up. I actually lived that sort of conflict.
The second lesson I learned is that you may have global goals with
renewable energy but have local impacts, and you often have a
controversy about a particular project.
The third thing I learned is that change is hard. Everybody is for
progress. Nobody is for change. Change is difficult, whether it is for
a local community, a State, or a nation.
The fourth thing: Permitting is hard. Getting permits for renewable
energy projects was lengthy, time-consuming, and expensive. This was
serious learning that I had during this period in that, if you want to
develop even the most beneficial project, you are going to have to go
through an often arduous permitting process, and somebody isn't going
to like it. There always will be trade-offs.
These were sporadic, small projects. Indeed, in New England today--
and I just checked this morning--about 10 percent of our electricity
comes from renewables. This is after almost 40 years of the development
of these projects--about 10 percent. We are now talking about a
transition in energy to a fully renewable future. Well, if you do the
math, that means 10 times the amount of renewable energy development
which we have done in the last 40 years, in the next 10 to 15 years.
People have to understand that this is a major, major change that is
going to require trade-offs. It is going to require us to make
decisions and to understand--again, to go back to my basic premise--
that there is no free lunch.
We are now undertaking the largest and most far-reaching energy
transition in human history. The transition to fossil fuels took about
150 years. Going back to around 1800, you can see the graphic goes up,
but we really got into the real heart of the fossil fuel economy in the
mid-20th century--150 years. We are talking about transitioning away
from fossil fuels to renewables over 15 years--not 150 but 15.
We have to grasp that this is an enormous undertaking and that it is
going to involve change. We are literally in a race with climate
change. That is why it is going to have to happen in the next 10, 15,
20 years, because the consequences of not doing it are catastrophic,
and we are already seeing that.
I think that we have reached a point at which most Americans realize
that climate change is real. The fishermen in Maine know it. The
loggers know it. The farmers know it. The people who work with the land
and the sea and the atmosphere understand what is happening. They see
it. The animals know it. They know what is happening, and that is why
we have to make this transition. That is why it is so important that we
make this transition, and it has got to be fast. We don't have time to
do it over 150 years or even over 50 years. It is a huge change. It is
going to involve dislocation, and it is going to involve trade-offs.
That is really the question that I want to address today.
There is broad agreement, I believe, that we need change, that we
need to develop responses to the global climate change crisis. There is
certainly agreement in the environmental community as far as that
question is concerned. There is nobody in the environmental community
whom I know who doubts climate change or doubts the necessity of taking
dramatic action to meet it. Climate change is as real as it gets, and
we have to address it.
How do we address it? With nonfossil fuel electrification--fast. If
we can do that, we can address the CO2. Really, what we are
talking about is the emission of CO2. Is it a problem? Well,
the average over the past million years of CO2 in the
atmosphere is about 280 parts per million. It varies up and down.
People say: Oh, this is a natural cycle.
Yes, it varies up and down between 150 and 300 parts per million. It
is now at about 420 parts per million. It has gone up 20 in the last 2
or 3 years. The last time we were over 400 parts per million of
CO2 in the atmosphere the oceans were 60 feet higher. We are
in unchartered territory in human history right now. We have to deal
with it, and we have to deal with it in a hurry.
Where is all of that CO2 coming from? Well, here is a
rough breakdown of the CO2 budget, if you will: About 30
percent comes from the generation of electricity--30, 35 percent.
Another 30, 35 percent comes from transportation, the combustion of
fossil fuels in vehicles. The last 30, 35 percent comes from space heat
and industrial use. So that is the budget that we have to deal with.
How do we tackle that? With electrification, with the electricity
coming from renewable sources.
Now, if you have an electric vehicle and you are feeling really good
about saving the environment, you are not saving the environment if the
power for that electric vehicle comes from fossil fuels. You are saving
the environment if the power for that electric vehicle comes from
renewables. So that is what we are talking about, but there are
problems with renewables.
Remember, I said I had worked in the wind power business. The wind
doesn't blow all the time. The Sun doesn't shine all the time. The term
is ``intermittency.'' That is the issue. That is the issue with
renewables--intermittency--the fact that there has to be something to
supply power when the Sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
The answer to that is storage. The real Green New Deal is energy
storage. If we can solve that problem in a cost-effective way, then we
really can have a realistic, all-renewable future, because what you
have with energy storage, plus renewables, is essentially baseload
power without CO2. That is really the direction that we are
moving in.
However--and this is what I want to really stress--you can't be in
favor of electrification; you can't be in favor of renewable power; you
can't be in favor of electric vehicles if you are not in favor of
mining the lithium that you need for the batteries or in covering a lot
of farmers' fields with solar panels. You can't have those things
without paying a price. It would be nice if you could.
I would love it if I could wave a wand and say: We are going to get
rid of fossil fuels, and we are going to have an all-renewable future.
Yes, I want that, but we have to recognize that, in order to get there,
there are some things we have to do that heretofore we really haven't
been very likely to like.
One of the other issues with renewable power is that a lot of the
renewable power is in places where there aren't people. So we have to
get that renewable power to the places where there are people.
Do you know what that means? Transmission, new transmission lines,
new rights of way. People aren't going to be too crazy about that, but
you can't have a renewable energy future without having transmission,
and you can't have a renewable energy future without having batteries
or some storage technology that, chances are, is going to require Earth
minerals that you are going to have to mine.
Geography is a problem. Technology is a problem. This will require
trade-offs. We have to keep in mind that we are talking about a global
goal--we are talking about literally saving the Earth--but we have to
understand that there are going to be costs to do so.
Let's talk about permitting.
One of my favorite stories is when God went to Moses and said: Moses,
I have good news and bad news.
Moses said: God, give me the good news.
God says: I am going to empower you to part the waters of the Red
Sea, allow my people to go free, and then
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have the waters come back and inundate Pharaoh's army.
Moses says: That is wonderful, God. What is the bad news?
God says: You have to prepare the environmental impact statement.
We have got to understand that permitting is part of the process of
going to a renewable future.
Now, when I was the Governor of Maine, I had a very clear policy: no
diminution--no cutting, no cutting corners--of environmental standards,
but I wanted the most timely and predictable environmental permitting
process in the country, and I don't think that those two things are in
any way mutually exclusive.
When I talk here and work with my colleagues here about permitting
reform, I am talking--we are talking--about the process, not the
standards. We are not talking about lowering the standards, saying that
you can emit more or you don't have to meet clean water standards.
I sit at Edmund Muskie's desk in my office. Lightning would strike me
if I were lowering the water quality or air quality standards, but we
have got to talk about a process that is timely and predictable.
The estimates are that, to permit a mine in this country, it takes
about 10 years--about 10 years. We don't have 10 years to spend on a
permitting process if we are going to solve this problem in time to
save the country and the planet. We have got to figure out how to do
this in a more timely way. How are we going to do it? I don't know the
details of the various discussions that are going on here, but I have
some thoughts that I have suggested to Senator Manchin and others.
One is one-stop shopping. You shouldn't have to go to five different
Agencies. Go to one Agency that is in charge of the permitting process,
and let them lead it. Don't make the applicant go to five, six, seven
different Agencies.
Secondly are deadlines--real deadlines, deadlines that mean
something--so that the Agency, if it says 180 days, has got to have a
decision in 180 days. Eisenhower retook Europe in 11 months. There is
no reason that we can't get decisions out of some of these Agencies in
less than a year. So deadlines and reasonable timeframes, I think, are
part of this process, and an accelerated appeals process, where the
appeal of an environmental decision on a renewable energy project, that
is related to renewable energy, or that is related to our renewable
energy future can go to the courts and get a fair hearing but on a
timely basis and not go through a long process that takes, again,
years.
Another suggestion I have--and this goes back to my experience of
working on renewable energy projects--is there should be some credit
given for the nature of the project that you are doing. In other words,
if you are doing a project that is going to contribute to the solution
of the problem of global climate change, you shouldn't be treated as a
strip mall. Some weight should be given to the import and the value--
the environmental value--of the project, vis-a-vis the incidental
environmental costs--and I could be criticized for using the word
``incidental,'' but the smaller environmental costs that may be
involved in getting there. I think that has got to be how we approach
this whole permitting question.
So why am I here today? I am here today to talk to my friends in the
environmental community--and I do mean friends, people whom I have
worked with all my life--to have them change the way they think about
the environmental process and what they have conventionally and
historically thought about this kind of action.
Historically, if you go back to the beginning of the environmental
movement in the sixties and seventies--and Lord, help me, I was there--
the environmental movement was about stopping things. The environmental
movement in Maine began with a proposed oil refinery on our coast.
People wanted to stop it because they didn't think it was the
appropriate place. But if you think about that, a lot of the
environmental movement has been about stopping things, stopping
projects, stopping highways, stopping whatever.
What we have to do now is think about facilitating getting things
done in order to get to the renewable future that we want. I think that
is a very, very important way to look at this process. You can't be for
EVs if you are against mining lithium.
Let me give you just a couple of numbers on what I am talking about.
Copper--remember, I talked about transmission. Copper, copper wires to
transmit electricity, the estimate is--I want to be sure this is right.
The estimate is we are going to need as much copper annually by 2050 as
has been mined in the entire prior history of the world. In 1 year, we
are going to need that much. The estimate is that in order to achieve
our climate goals, we are going to have to triple--triple--the grid:
the wires, the rights of way, the towers. The grid infrastructure has
to be tripled in order to absorb the new and transmitted--distribute
the new energy that is going to be needed. If you have electric
vehicles, you are going to need more wires to get the power--that is
going to be a huge increase; between doubling and tripling is the
estimate--of the strength of the grid.
The International Energy Agency--not me and not some commercial
group, but the International Energy Agency says that by 2040--that is
not that long from now, barely over 15 years--we are going to need 42
times the amount of lithium that we have, 25 times more graphite, 21
times more cobalt, 19 times more nickel, and 7 times more rare-earth
elements. Now, we have two choices: We can buy those things from other
countries, particularly countries that may be potential adversaries. Do
we really want to be dependent on China for this kind of essential
material to our environmental future? I don't think so. But if we are
going to say we don't want to import it, we have got to get it out of
the ground here, and we can't spend 10 years deciding it. I am not
saying lower the standards, but I am saying the process itself should
not be used as a weapon to undermine projects that are necessary to
achieve our ultimate climate goal.
This is a change. This is a change of thinking that is required by
the reality that we face. I am here because I want to face that
reality. I want to do something about climate change. I want to take
the actions necessary, not token actions but the real deal. But it is
going to involve these enormous commitments of time, effort, and money
and also our understanding--particularly in the environmental
community--that there is no free lunch.
On December 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln came to this Congress to talk
about the progress of the Civil War. His problem was that the Congress
was being the Congress. They were doing politics, and he didn't feel
they were really taking it seriously or understood the massive change
that was sweeping over the country. At the end of that speech, the
afternoon of December 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln gave what I think is
still the best analysis of how you deal with change that I have ever
encountered, and I think it applies exactly in this situation. Lincoln
said:
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy
present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty,
[therefore] we must rise--with the occasion. As our case is
new, so we must think anew, and act anew.
And then here is the key line:
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our
country.
``We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.''
``Disenthrall'' means thinking new and different ways. Let go of the
way you thought about these kinds of issues in the past. Disenthrall
ourselves, and then we shall save our planet.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). The Republican whip.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to
complete my remarks before the start of the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.